


A Glitch from the Void

by SpaceyBot



Category: Warframe
Genre: Cephalon Fragments, Gen, Gender-Neutral Operator, Illnesses, Minor Spoilers, One Shot, Ordis tries to take care of his Operator, Platonic Relationships, The Void
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 14:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15820881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceyBot/pseuds/SpaceyBot
Summary: The Operator somehow falls ill, leaving Ordis to take care of them. Only he isn't all that well either.Ever since they had uncovered all of his fragments, he's been hearing ghosts. The Operator has their own ghosts to deal with.





	A Glitch from the Void

 

“Please, Operator, you must rest now. For  _me_.”

They weren’t going to argue with him, and how could they when he pleads like that? Another wave of pain crashes against the inside of their skull, coursing through the hollows of their eyes. They groan, draping an arm across their dull eyes in an attempt to block out the bone piercing light.

Transference did nothing to ease the pain. They had thought that being in their more familiar body--albeit a borrowed one--they would cease to feel the symptoms of their sickness. But even the warframe could not block out the throbbing headache or the overwhelming urge to simply collapse.

Heeding Ordis’ advice, the Operator steps out into their physical form before crawling into the makeshift bed the two had prepared in their personal quarters.

The wyrm sentinel that Ordis had tethered to his control perks up at the sudden act, chirping its concern, hovering just a bit higher. He helplessly watches as they attempt to get comfortable. Ordis did not even know that the Operator could even fall ill. Surely the Zariman incident could have altered their immune system, as it had altered nearly everything else about the child. But all it had done was leave it weakened and ruined, or so it seemed. And spending all of those years in a dream did nothing for their health either.

And yet it feels wrong. Ordis had witnessed their miraculous recovery, their renewed ability to walk, to run even, around the ship on their own two feet after the incident on the Kuva Fortress. It had terrified the living daylights out of him. If only such a miracle could salvage his poor Operator’s health now. Why didn’t it?

Ordis floats around the Operator’s bed, which consisted only of an Ostron carpet laid on the floor in front of the observation window, a pillow, and one of the larger, thicker syndanas they had gotten a while back. Ordis should have been proactive. He should have bothered the Operator to build a real bed for such occasions. They must be terribly uncomfortable. The way they attempt to create a cocoon out of the substitute syandana blanket pains him.

“Ordis?”

“Yes, star child?”

“Could you get the other syandana for me?” They ask, their voice a mere whisper. “It’s freezing.”

Impossible. They were clearly overheating, burning even. However, he did not miss the way their shoulders oscillated as they spoke, overcome by shivers.

“Of course.” He replies. His proxy is already flying away to dutifully fulfil his Operator’s request.

As soon as he opens the door,  _ **it**_  comes padding in, scampering to find its owner.

“Oh, NO. Absolutely not, you _－ **filthy, disgusting** －_little kubrow. Shoo! Let them be.” Can’t it see that its master is sick? The wyrm comes to the Kubrow’s eye level, pushing against its horned nose. Ordis wilts a little. That adorably ugly, and endearing nose, and those glistening beady eyes. It has both of them wrapped around its giant paws. “Oh. Oh. Operator, it’s giving me those eyes again. What should I do?”

Though they give no verbal response, they seem to come to life at the sound of their giant kubrow padding around the room. They call to it, attempting some kind of pathetic whistle. It comes out as mostly spit and air. It only takes the kubrow a few bounding leaps to make its way over to its master. It almost brings Ordis to a state of…melancholy? Anger? Watching that loyal, murderous dog heed every beck and call. He does not know why.

The Operator makes a muffled noise, interrupting his thoughts. A laugh. The rustle of the syandana’s cloth softly fills the room as the giant beast nudges at its owner, laying pitifully on the ground and wrapped in a large syandana. Eventually, it settles down, curling around the Operator. The Operator easily snuggles into it, desperate for warmth. They are still. Quiet. The room falls into a listless silence.  They seem to have forgotten their request for a second syandana blanket, with the heat radiating from their companion sufficing. Ordis watches as one of their arms poke out of the cocoon to circle around the great beast.

The sweat of their palm coats the animal’s thick, heavy  fur, imparting an unpleasant scent. Both will need to be washed down, Ordis thinks to himself. He must sanitize the ship soon, to prevent further instances of this sickness.

“Ordis will return when your Tenno friends have delivered your medication.”

It wasn’t medication really. The other Tenno did not seem to know where to even find conventional remedies. Instead they turned to the Ostrons, in search of common remedies, elixirs, brews, anything. The Operator’s illness struck them as strange, just as it had perplexed Ordis himself. Their warframes had always provided a barrier between bacteria and viruses from reaching the physical host. Even that odd pink cyst they had gotten one time did no real harm to neither the frame nor the Operator. Perhaps the Operator had been spending too much time outside of transference.

“Hey, Ordis?” They mumble, only half awake now. Ordis waits, just as he’s always done.

“Thank you. For everything.”  They say. There is pity, love, entangling the data stream that courses through his mind as he processes their words. The cephalon’s voice is present throughout the whole orbiter, the volume of it reduced in an effort to keep them comfortable. The void itself could not contain the gentleness, the warmth in his voice.

“Do not thank me. I am your Cephalon–”

**－your loving dog－  
** **－your doctor－  
** **－your wet nurse－**

A quick burst of static. There are echoes in his mind, shimmering fragments revealing themselves from the pit that he had thrown them into long ago. Stop. Stop now. A sudden surge of energy courses through his being. It takes him an immense amount of will power to suppress the phantom thoughts, and even more to keep himself from speaking them aloud.

Ever since his Operator had begun unearthing more and more of the memories he had strewn about, he started suffering from these horrid glitches. Everyday the Operator found more. Everyday he began to crack more. Neither of them could bring themselves to speak of it.

Ordis recovers within nanoseconds.

“I am your Cephalon.” He repeats, firmer. “I gladly serve you, Operator.  ** _Now go to bed_**.”

The Operator scoffs with feigned indignation. Just that playful act alone must have taken much of their energy because they fall silent quickly after, their expression returning to one of discomfort and pain. Ordis knows whenever a new ache befalls them when their eyebrows knit together, or when they pull their kubrow in a little closer. He is helpless, only able to watch the poor thing suffer until medicine arrives.

“Sleep well.” He murmurs, so quietly that it could be any other sound. He dims the lights until it is only starlight that filters into the room. The Operator has already succumbed to its effect.

                                                 

* * *

 

There is no respite, even in dreams. It brings back memories.

They have felt this before, long ago. They’re sure of it. Even before the Zariman accident, they can feel the faint memory brushing against their mind. Their mother pressing a kiss to their cheek, brushing away sticky strands of hair. Their father’s palm against their glistening forehead, feeling the heat as it radiates from them. They have only ever gotten sick once. But even then it was different.

They are floating in a vast expanse of nothingness, limbs suspended in weightlessness. Are they…outside of the ship? No. It’s impossible.

The headache chips away at their skull as if something is trying to break free of its confines. There is too much inside of their mind. It hurts. Their body pulsates and aches and burns, so full of sickness on the outside. And yet inside, they are hollow, empty…infinite. They are the space that surrounds the Lishet and the void that swallows the planets and the stars.

The Operator brings a hand up to brush the corner of the lips. Something wet had dribbled down their chin. When they draw it back to examine, all they see is a black liquid coating their hand. It feels too real.

They blink hard, in an attempt to wake up from the dream. Someone is holding them back, keeping them trapped within this purgatory.

And then they realize where they are. It’s the only place they could be.

They need to leave, to wake up. Now. They open their eyes only to see a phantom staring back. It’s them. A mirror image.  Dark, peering eyes tearing through the depths of their twin soul. The Void grins at them, black seeping from their mouth.

“Remember me, kiddo?”

                                               

* * *

 

It took three hours for the others to arrive with the medicine, and not a moment too soon.

Ordis, or rather his wrym thrall, slips into the room with its tail wrapped around a vial. He brightens the room ever so slightly, descending until he is by his Operator’s side. They breath in heaving and hoarse breaths. The weakness penetrates their bones. Ordis falters. The sight of **** _－that ugly child, their face burned, starved-sick like a stray－_  forces something to the forefront of his mind. He forgets his original purpose, floating numbly. They look just like that child he had seen in his past life. Weak. Helpless. 

_Get yourself together, Ordis._  He wills himself to obey.

And then his Operator awakens, startled by a dream. A nightmare, so it seems. They look around, until their wide eyes finally focus on him. And that’s all that it takes.

The lights of the Orbiter shut off. 

The wyrm gently lands onto the floor, next to the slumbering kubrow, all of its power siphoning away with a dying whir. The small vial gives off a soft clink as it makes contact with the ground. Ordis’ connection with the sentinel severs itself. There is only silence.

“O-Ordis!” The Operator shouts, rousing the kubrow from its slumber.

And then the ship’s interior lights flicker. A new, but familiar voice answers.

“Operator.” He says, testing the word with a curious lilt.

Their blood runs cold and still. Not out of fear, but disbelief. Was it an illusion?

It is Ordis’ voice, only it is distinctly organic and far deeper, almost as if the source of it was merely inches away from them. The Operator knows at once who he is. After all, they had found everything that he had tried to hide. All of those fragments that Ordis tried to render nonexistent. They had glued the pieces together until the truth rose from the fracture lines. He was the voice from those transmissions.

Ordan Karris  

Karris cannot breathe. Yet he does not need to.

He sees through the ship’s eyes, sees the Operator. It nearly brings laughter out of his synthetic throat. Both of them, the former pit dogs of the Orokin, the immortals. How broken they both are. But it matters little now. Now, they fight for each other. They protect each other. The Tenno and the Beast of Bones. 

Before the child knows it, the lights rise one more, bathing the room in brightness and clarity. The wyrm picks itself up off the ground, gingerly laying the dropped vial onto their lap. The Operator, despite the delirium of their disease cannot bring themselves to be afraid of someone so familiar. Their fingers curl around the vial’s neck.

Another quick burst of static. Has he gone? They swallow the heaviness and sickness caught in their mouth, the need to keep Ordis stable overriding their weakness and the images of The Man in the Wall.

“Ordis.” The Operator pauses, coughing to clear the phlegm from their sore throat. “ _Ordan_. We have a lot to discuss. I-I’m so sorry, I should have talked to you sooner－”

But the response is a synthesis of two voices, melding into one. They can hear it. Ordis’ warmth reigning predominant, returning to its fullest potential as it rings through the ship. And a whisper of the beast. Beneath it all the faintest hint of Karris remains:

“No. Discussion can wait until you are well. I urge you to rest. Please.” He murmurs. “For _me_.”     

The Operator hesitates for a brief moment. They open their mouth to speak but no words come out. Ordis, or Ordan, dims the lights once more, as if it were his attempt to pacify them back to sleep.  _Their_  attempt.

Is he Ordis or Ordan? Neither or both? He doesn’t quite know. He doesn’t care. The Operator has awoken from the dream that Margulis had induced long ago. And now he has awoken from his. He’s never felt so sure, so aware. The bizarre state of consciousness that he’s in borders on painful. Yet it feels right.

“I will.” They reply. “But after this, no more hiding, no more avoidance. We’ll come clean together. I promise.”

The Operator downs the bottle’s contents in one long, drawn out sip. It is too dark for either one to notice the thick, black residue left on the vial’s opening, just where their lips had been.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is also posted on my tumblr @mtmte-headcanons!
> 
> The ending makes it sound like I plan to continue this but I am very near sighted and didn't plan anything out so...we shall see...no promises. But we shall see...


End file.
